WHAT WOULD DICKENS WRITE TODAY?

	Denise Mina

Denise Mina was born in Glasgow, studied law at Glasgow University and wrote her first novel Garnethill (1998) while she was researching her PhD thesis on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders. Garnethill won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger for best first crime novel, and marked the beginning of a trilogy of novels set in Glasgow including Exile (2000) and Resolution (2001).

Her fourth novel, Sanctum, the story of a forensic psychiatrist convicted of killing a serial killer, was published in 2002.

This was followed by a series of novels following the life and career of a young journalist, Paddy Meehan, carving a place for herself in the newspaper industry in the turbulent ‘80s and ‘90s – The Field of Blood (2005), filmed by BBC Scotland in 2010, The Dead Hour (2006), shortlisted by the Mystery Writers of America for the Edgar Award in 2007, and The Last Breath (2007).

Most recently, Denise Mina has begun a series of novels based around the character Detective Sergeant Alex Morrow, a Glaswegian policewoman. Still Midnight (2009), in which Morrow investigates an attack on a Pakistani family, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award in 2010.

The End of the Wasp Season, the second book in the series, was published in May 2011 and a third book, Gods and Beasts, is due in 2012.

Denise Mina also writes short stories which have appeared in various anthologies, including 'Helena and the Babies' from Fresh Blood 3 (1999), which won the Crime Writers' Association Macallan Short Story Dagger.

She also writes comics and was the author of 'Hellblazer' for a year, which was published as two graphic novels Empathy is the Enemy (2006) and The Red Right Hand (2007). 

She wrote a further graphic novel, A Sickness in the Family, in 2010 and in 2006 wrote her first play, Ida Tamson, which was serialised in the Evening Times over five nights.

Selected Reviews

Critical Perspective: literature.britishcouncil.org  
On “The End of the Wasp Season”: www.guardian.co.uk
On “Still Midnight”: www.independent.co.uk